Wednesday

Another full day in Wairaka!!   It began with a trip up monkey mountain to watch the sun rise which is always a special team moment.
 In the morning the team went it's separate ways - Some joined the YSU team on the mercy ministry, others ran a computer tutorial at the village, others met with with the planning team for the "village Games" which are happening tomorrow and some stayed at subbi for some cooking with Juliet.

The mercy ministry house is taking shape with the roof going on and mud begining to go on the walls. The YSU youth team are an amazing bunch of young people who are making a great impact in breaking the cycle of poverty in their local community.

The Village Games is another example of young people stepping up to make a difference with the older children from the village partnering with the social workers to plan this activity day for the Village. Team Muzungu is looking forward to competing!!

Phil Ben and Pete did a great job in computer teaching with the 3 new Village laptops.

The afternoon included a visit to the YSU tailoring class where we were warmly welcomed and there was great interaction with the team and the girls.

We finished of the day with a Management dinner at All Friends which also was a great night of connecting and laughing!!!

Tuesday

Tuesday started with an early morning run up monkey mountain for a few of us. The views are beautiful up there and it ends up being worth the long slog of 2.3kms! Afterwards we enjoyed Juliet’s AMAZING banana pancakes which I couldn’t get enough of and then we commenced the morning activities.

Myself and a few other team members then continued building the hut for the ‘mercy ministries’ project. We put logs on the side and top of the building in preparation for the roof and the packing of mud in the walls. I had a great time working with all the local Ugandan’s and we had some great conversations and laughs with each other. Our work was cut short due to rain but I thoroughly enjoyed it!

After a beautiful lunch, we headed to the village of hope to make chapatis (a wonderful flat bread) with the village mummas and the kids! It was hard work and took about three hours because we had to cook for all the kids but we all learnt some useful tips in kneading and got to chat with the village mummas.

We enjoyed a great dinner of Chapatis, potato and beans and then we sang a few songs and told a few stories which I loved! The kids are so passionate about God and I found it really inspiring and challenging to my own life.

All in all we had another great day and I’m loving Uganda so far!!

 Peter Weinlich

Monday

The best way to start a day – With Juliettes Rolexes! For everyone at home, these are basically an omelette wrapped in a chipattie – a Ugandan wrap. So delicious!

After a nourishing breakfast, Dale, Jim, Brooke and Phil headed off to build the framework for a traditional Ugandan hut! The huts are made from tree trunks and are packed with mud for the walls and has sheet metal for the roof. The day consisted of digging holes for the framework, pumping water for the locals to drink and heavy jerry-can carries from the well to the construction site.

Meagan, Anche and Liz headed off to Youth Support Uganda [YSU] site to tutor the female youths in business management and crafting love letters. During the afternoon, Anche put her engineering cap on and worked on equations for the supporting beams of YSU centre.

Albie, Ben and Pete headed to ‘Home of Hope’ to put their physio and Occupational Therapy skills to the test by giving exercises to the youths there.

All team members worked hard and thoroughly earned their keep.

For dinner, Juliette and her gang were given the night off and were invited to enjoy some Sheppard’s Pie and salad, prepared by Meagan and Brooke. Juliette gave the meal a thumbs up and was thoroughly enjoyed by all.

After dinner, team members headed to ‘The Village of Hope’ for movie night! The movie was ‘Mouse Hunt’ which the Village kids thought was hysterical!

It has been a wonderful experience getting to know the children and people in Uganda. Team members reflected on this and the fact we are only here for one more week! Time has flown!

Phil HULLS

Sunday

               

We had a three-hour epic session of church, including The Hope Choir from the Village of Hope, singing to mark the 10-year anniversary of the Village. It is wonderful to witness the incredible passion of the Ugandan people when it comes to their religion. We then came back to Subbi house for lunch and a break.

After Lunch, we practised our team song that we’re presenting to the village children at our farewell.  We seem to be coming along nicely with it and are in harmony. As per usual, there were lots of laughs and banter amongst the team.

 At three o’clock we headed down to Youth Support Uganda (YSU) Centre on the banks of Lake Victoria to meet some of the local youths.

It seems to be a great meeting place for the local village kids and the children from the Village of Hope. There were games of Netball, down-ball and dancing. It is great to see that all the children participate and encourage each other in all the activities. A netball game was organised with mixed teams including some of the hope builder team members. It was great to see some of the guys (myself included) putting on the bibs and joining in on the game, even though we had no idea of the rules and plays. A great time was had by all, and one of the stand outs was young Ben scoring two great goals. The game ended in a tie – which was quite a relief to us mazoongoos, who generally get beaten in any of the sports that we play against the locals.

It was an afternoon of fun and was great to see well over thirty local and village children. At the end of the day, we headed back to Subbi House to another one of Juliettes amazing meals. Boy we’d be lost without her.        Dale

Saturday

Saturday

Starting off with a sleep in with nobody going up the mountain for a run, a true start to a cruisy Saturday - But, it didn’t last.

The Painting crew, being Dale, Glen, Jim, Meagan and Brooke struck disaster when they discovered a flaw in the roof space of the Uganda Youth Support [YSU] Building. Thankfully, the engineer of our crew, Anche Geuze assessed the building and is working on plans to come up with a solution.

Team members Albert, Ben, Pete and I [P. HULLS] headed to ‘The Village of Hope’ for a bible study being led by the leaders in the village. After a couple songs and wonderful testimonies, Sharron lead the study in Genesis 37 about ‘Joseph the Dreamer’.

Both teams headed back to ‘Subbi House’ for Juliettes fantastic salad rolls [seriously good] and fuelled up for the game of the century – the Mazoongoos [That’s white folks for everyone at home] V Ugandans. At some stage, the fittest and older member of our team, Jim returned from his daily hike up ‘olusozi rwenkiima’ [Monkey Mountain] – This guy doesn’t have rest days.

After a couple hours of chilling, we all headed down to ‘Jinja Christian School’ for the soccer match. Fortunately, we had a couple of locals on our side too – one being a member of a local soccer team. We also had Albie ‘the kiwi’ on our team – he was selected as a professional soccer player back in NZ, so we had a strong offence for our team.

The whistle sounded and the first 30-minute half of the game was on! The mazoongoos held up well providing a strong defence to the agile African players. However, the locals scored a goal late in the first half and the visitors were yet to score.

Two quick goals were scored by the locals early in the second half and things were looking grim for the visitors. Spirits were still high and same-same with talent. Many close goals were shot by offensive team members Albie, Glen, Ben, Dale, Julius - our local soccer professional and brilliant catches from the mazoongoo’s African goalie.

The mazoongoo’s were losing 0-4 until Julius scored a goal in the late second half. This triggered a typical Aussie response from two members of the team, Dale and Phil.  They lifted up their shirts, put them over their heads and ran around on the field howling. Some of the locals laughed, others wondered if they needed their heads examined. The final result was 1-4, the locals winning by a landslide. Both teams shook hands and went on their way back home.

Sodas were cracked open and soft tissue injuries were assessed and looked after by our talented physio’s Ben and Albie. Albie’s assessment of Anche’s injuries were She’ll live, that’s the main thing’.

After dinner, all team members slept soundly for a morning of singing at church in the morning.

Friday

Today was a rather full on day. In the morning some of us headed to the Home of Hope with some of the older kids from the Village of Hope. Others headed to Youth Support Uganda to do some painting work. For those of us who went to the Home of Hope, we took a lot of the disabled children for a walk on wheelchairs. It was a pleasant experience as I could see that the kids from the Village of Hope was eager to interact and show love to those at the Home of Hope. It was especially nice that a bunch of us learned the alphabet in sign-language from the deaf kids.

After coming back, we had lunch and prepared ourselves for the slum visit. For me personally, I didn’t know what to expect. I thought I had gotten used to the poverty in Jinja, and felt as though the slums would have little effect on me. I was proven wrong on so many levels. The conditions in the slums were overwhelmingly poor. We split into groups of 4 and visited some families to pray and give them some aid in food materials. That whole experience was very emotional and tough for me. To hear what these families were going through, and the conditions they were forced to be in, it was hard to control my emotions. It was painful to imagine the suffering these people had to endure to survive a day at a time. It was truly devastating, and it was very hard for me to maintain my smile to the swarm of children following us around.

Overall, today was a very emotionally draining day. I feel the experience I had today will live with me for a long time; and I hope it does. It will serve as a reminder that there are so many people who are in desperate need of our help and prayers. Today I saw true poverty.           Ben